Vika
by Forthewin99
Summary: The untold backstory of the character Vika from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. It explains one of her comments in the game that says "Waiting for people who don't come is... hard."


Vika

Once, a long time ago, there was a war in Gallia. It was a civil war. Many laguz citizens thought that the king of Gallia was too weak and inactive of a ruler. Many disliked the fact that their king was a tiger, instead of a lion, for lions are much stronger than tigers and they wanted only the fiercest and ferocious ruler, not a wimpy tiger. The previous king (a lion) known as the Great King had impregnated a tiger laguz female, and she gave birth to a tiger laguz son. Before the valiant and beloved king died, he expressed his desire that his son live on his rule by becoming king, for the king had no other sons. The son gladly took his place at the throne.

The new king enjoyed his kingship, quickly learning proper mannerisms of a king. At first, he constantly strove to be an effective and loved ruler, much like his father. But over time, kingship went to his head, and he became lazy and irresponsible. The public generally tolerated him, though compared to the previous king, he was clearly mediocre at best. No one wanted to do anything about it though. Many simply figured he would learn and grow until he was more than adequate, and then went on the rest of the day without thinking about it. This mindset continued for many years until there began to be word of beorc sneaking into the borders and capturing women and children to take back as slaves. The kidnappings hugely displeased the citizens of Gallia and infuriated them when the king refused to respond to these attacks. The Gallian army could not act in any way without an order from the king, and though most of the soldiers longed to enforce the borders, they could not even leave their stations because the king declined their leave.

As the kidnappings continued, the citizen's original distaste with the king grew into an outrage, and the spark of rebellion ignited. Several laguz organized bands of rebels, and together swore to overthrow the king. One laguz warrior, a lion named Caineghis, assembled all the different bands of rebels together and formed one large army. Once he had enough faith in his army, he ordered for his plan of rebellion to be announced to Gallia, and then before it was, he and his army went into hiding in an enormous cave in a nearby mountain. The messenger for the rebel army traveled from the mountain to the king's castle, endlessly. The king did not see this rebel army as a threat, for his army included many of Gallia's most famous and fierce warriors known to Tellius. Unfortunately, this last lack of a serious response would be the king's last, because it caused even more laguz to cross over and join the rebel army.

Finally, Caineghis launched his attack. His entire army laid siege on the castle. Just when the battle began to look bleak for the rebels, more of the king's army would switch sides and fight for the rebels. The rebels were unsuccessful on their attempt to capture the castle, and the attack managed to cause an entire civil war. There were so many arguments and feuds in the smaller villages that fights began to break out and those who were not even warriors were being killed. Additionally, the beorc kidnappings grew in number immensely because they took advantage of the confusion and distraction of the Gallians. The war continued for about a year. Brother was pit against brother, father was pit against son. It was a very dark time for Gallia.

When the king started getting desperate, for the war had gone on very long and supplies and soldiers were scarce, the king did something dishonorable and pathetic. He enlisted the help of Kilvas mercenaries. Using the country's gold held in the castle, he hired over 3,000 ravens to come and quell the rebellion.

Word of Gallia's civil war had reached other countries like Goldoa, Phoenicia and Kilvas shortly after it began. Naturally, each country distanced themselves from the conflict as much as possible, but it was still talked about.

In Kilvas, there lived a family of ravens: a mother and a father, a daughter and a young son. The family was very poor. The father was gone most of the time hunting around the country for odd jobs that would pay well. It was his only source of income. The mother was always at home, taking care of the young child with the help of her teenage daughter, Vika. Ever since Vika was a child she had barely ever seen her father. This saddened her, however she did know that she would not even be alive if not for her father working tirelessly to get enough money to buy food.

One day, her father came home with a grin on his face that shone brilliantly. He requested to talk to her mother in private for a moment, so she was left with her brother alone for a while. After a period of time, the suspense torturing Vika, her mother and father came out of their room and this time her father beckoned Vika into his room. She slowly walked in with him.

Her father announced to her that he had amazing news. He had been offered a well-paying mercenary job. He was to go fight in Gallia's civil war for an amount of time and in return he would be paid with a small fortune, enough to keep him home for at least a few years. Vika broke down in tears and hugged him. When she asked him why her mother wasn't ecstatic he replied quietly that she did not want him to go. She was worried that he would killed, since he hadn't had much experience in fighting. She said she would rather see him one day a year than never see him at all. He had refused her and said that he was going, nonetheless, because he was sure he would not die, and they needed the money. He was exhausted and jumped at the chance of getting a break.

"I will not die," he reiterated to her many times. He promised that he would return to them. "Just wait for me," he said. So they did. The day came when he was to leave with other mercenaries. They watched him transform and fly into the sky along with a flock of thousands of other transformed ravens. They kept track of which raven was him until he was out of sight. Then it occurred to Vika that she did not know how long the ravens would be gone. Would he be gone for weeks? For months? Would he return _the next morning_? There was no way to know now. She knew one thing though. She had been instructed to wait, and that was what she would do. When he had gone out of sight, she sat down and stared at where she had seen him last. She stared and stared until the sun was setting in a position that blinded her if she kept staring. Then when the sun had fully set, she stared again. She stared until it was pitch black and she fell asleep. Then the next morning she awakened, and realized she was famished, so she went inside, and got what little food they could afford to use and then returned outside and stared some more. This continued for almost a week before she began going inside more often until after many months, she never went outside. Her mother could not handle her son on her own without Vika's help anyway, so Vika spent more and more time helping her and less time waiting.

The years passed. Vika grew up. Her mother grew older. Her father never returned. Vika had to work now to feed the three of them. Even after so many years, once in a while she would go outside and wait for her father. She knew it was in vain now since the Gallian civil war had ended about a year after he had left. The rebels had won, and Caineghis had been crowned as Gallia's new king, and even only a short few years after the Great King's son was overthrown, Caineghis was twice as loved as the Great King ever was.

When she heard that the Gallian war had ended, Vika's mother accepted that her husband had been killed, and wept day and night for months. Vika was sad, but moreover she was angry. She was promised that he would return, and that promise was not kept. She was told to wait, and she remained loyal to that command, even to the point where it didn't matter.

Many, many decades later, Vika's mother had passed away, mostly due to a lack of will to live. Her brother had grown up and moved out and disappeared from home somewhere. So due to the loss of all of her family members and bad memories in her home that she grew up in, she left as well, leaving the home completely abandoned. She flew far away to a different part of Tellius and settled down in the Grann desert of Begnion. She lived alone, working at a nearby village.

It was there that she met two travelers, a beorc, and a tiger from Gallia. Their names were Tormod and Muarim. They asked her for food because they were running low on supplies and did not have time to settle down at a village to buy some. They offered twice what it was worth, so she accepted the offer and offered for them to eat in her house. It was there that they talked and discussed their pasts. Tormod told of his time with Ike in Greil's Mercenaries, and Muarim gave his story as well. Vika was so impressed that she was convinced to travel with them wherever they went. She was quite useful for she had wings and could fly to villages to pick up supplies and still catch up with them. Ever since then she has traveled with them and been a messenger for them and assisted when they needed her…

And the rest is history.


End file.
